Saturday, November 30, 2013

J. David Cox, the
national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO,
pledged to ignore the Supreme Court and said that he and the labor movement
would “fight in the streets” against Republican governors’ supporters of voter
integrity efforts.

“I’m committing myself,
I’m committing our union, and the labor movement. We will not — we will not —
allow Republican governors to control the vote in this country,” he said to
applause. “That is a God-given right of every citizen. The right to vote! We
are going to fight ‘em. We’re going to fight them in the streets. We are going
to fight them anywhere. We are going to fight them! I don’t care what the
Supreme Court says.....To Read More....

By Eric
Boehm / November 28, 2013 "As part of our mission to supply far-reaching coverage of state house and government news, Watchdog.orgencourages all news broadcasters, media organizations and citizen journalists to steal our work." This originally appeared here.Shoppers on Black Friday are probably more interested in finding the
best deals on the hottest holiday toys than getting a crash course in
progressive politics, but groups targeting Walmart
and other major retailers have other plans.

Protests being organized by a
group known as OUR Walmart are planned at locations in
all 50 states and have the backing of prominent labor unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers,
the Service Employees International
Union, and the AFL-CIO,
an umbrella group for dozens of labor unions.

The protests are intended to
call attention to what OUR Walmart says are the low wages and poor working
conditions at the massive American retail
chain, but some see the efforts as thinly-veiled union activism that would be
illegal if carried out by the unions directly.

JUST
ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WAL-MART: Though they are meant to look like local,
grassroots protests, Friday’s events are coordinated at the national level by a
group funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers.

So, let’s pull back that veil.

OUR Walmart is part of a new
breed of labor organizations known as “workers’ centers,” which mix progressive
politics with union organizing and a pinch of radical tactics borrowed from
groups like Occupy Wall Street. The
groups have sprung up in major cities across the country and prefer large, loud
protests instead of the traditional collective bargaining process.

Workers centers with ties to
SEIU were behind the Labor Day fast
food protests that took place in many cities. They’ve also been behind a series
of disruptive protests at American restaurant chains over low pay for
restaurant workers.

“Contrary to their public
façade, union front groups are well-financed, highly sophisticated labor
organizations,” said Glenn Spencer,
vice president of the Workforce Freedom Initiative,
an anti-union group. “When you pull back the curtain, one finds a river of
financial support flowing to these groups from activist foundations.’”

OUR Walmart can trace its
origins to UFCW, a national union that represents mostly retail employees.

HE WANTS
YOU: AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka is looking to expand the labor union’s
influence to workers who are not covered by collective bargaining agreements.

In its 2011 filing with the U.S. Labor Department, UFCW announced it was forming a
subsidiary organization known as “Organization United for Respect
at Walmart,” later shortened to OUR Walmart.

Though they are not required to
file the same public reporting documents as unions, the beginnings of most
“workers centers” can be connected to the labor movement — literally, in many
cases, since SEIU, UFCW and other politically-powerful unions gave much of the
initial support and seed money to get those operations off the ground.

On its face, the entire effort
requires convincing the public of two incongruous ideas.

First, the supposedly grassroots
groups want Black Friday shoppers to believe the average Walmart wage of $12.83
per hour isn’t enough to raise a family. But secondly, the groups want shoppers
to believe those same low-wage workers have enough time and money to organize
and fund a multi-city campaign of public relations efforts and protests (not to mention all the protest guides and materials
offered through their websites.)

Recently, unions have begun to
embrace the workers centers they helped found.

SEI U
THERE: The SEIU will be protesting alongside the Our Walmart group on Friday.
But that’s no surprise, since the SEIU was secretly behind the fast food worker
protests earlier this year, which were launched by a similar workers center
group.

Last week, Trumka and Joseph Hansen, international president of UFCW, were the
lead speakers on a conference call announcing the Black Friday protests.
Representatives from progressive groups like MoveOn.org
joined them.

If labor unions are funding
workers centers, and are increasingly vocal in their support of the
organizations’ tactics and policies, why continue to pretend they’re separate?

One answer, perhaps, is that
workers centers can get away with things that would be illegal for labor unions
to do, such as the protests planned at Walmart stores Friday.

A variety of federal laws limit
the activities of labor unions. Importantly, they are not allowed to engage in
activities that directly interfere with commerce — picket lines are legal, of
course, but the large, loud and disruptive protests carried out by groups like
OUR Walmart, the Restaurant Opportunity
Center and other workers centers are not subject to those labor laws,
because the groups are registered as nonprofits.

“Workers centers give unions a
way to play in the legal shadows while skirting accountability and oversight,”
said Jim Plunkett, director of
labor law policy at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce. “By avoiding being labeled as labor organizations, they’re
able to play fast and loose with labor requirements.”

Will Patrick contributed to
this report. He can be reached at WPatrick@Watchdog.org

Boehm is a reporter for
Watchdog.org and can be reached atEBoehm@Watchdog.org.Follow him on Twitter @EricBoehm87.

The economic turmoil in Venezuela has received increasing
international media attention over the past few months. In September, the toilet paper shortage (which followed food shortages and
electricity blackouts) resulted in the “temporary occupation” of the Paper
Manufacturing Company, as armed troops were sent to ensure the “fair
distribution” of available stocks. Similar action occurred a few days ago
against electronics stores: President Nicolás Maduro accused
electronics vendors of price-gouging, and jailed them with the warning that
“this is just the start of what I’m going to do to protect the Venezuelan
people.”

Earlier this month, in another attempt to ensure
“happiness for all people,” Maduro began to hand out Christmas bonuses, in preparation for the coming elections in
December. But political campaigning is not the only reason for the government’s
open-handedness. The annual inflation rate in Venezuela has been rapidly rising
in recent months, and has now reached a staggering 54 percent (not accounting
for possible under-estimations). Although not yet officially in hyperinflation,
monetary expansion is pushing Venezuela toward the brink……seeds of disaster are sown from the
beginning of government intervention in the market, although “the first stage
of the inflationary process may last for many years.” But the final stages of
economic collapse occur far more quickly....... the difference between the U.S.
and other Western economies and Venezuela is merely one of degree, not of kind..…To Read More……

Friday, November 29, 2013

By Diana West on Friday, November 29, 2013
What a publishing coup for the editors at Breitbart News when Vladimir Bukovsky
chose to offer them the first chapter of his 1993 book, Judgment in Moscow, for
publication for the first time in English. Published in other languages
including French (Judgment a Moscou,1995), Random House acquired the book in the
1990s, but, as Bukovsky lays out below, the deal became contingent on deep,
transformative revisions he simply refused to make.As Bukovsky explains, Random House honcho
Jason Epstein was determined to shape Bukovsky's remarkable manuscript based on
a trove of ultra-secret Soviet documents to fit the conventional wisdom ... the
consensus ... the court history of the Cold War -- never mind the evidence as
laid out in these stunning documents themselves. Something else...Read More »

President Obama
hasn’t made a dent in his second-term legislative agenda and has seen his poll
numbers plummet in a difficult first year of his second term.For the first time in his presidency, fewer
Americans trust and like him, raising serious questions, even among his supporters,
about whether he can make anything of his final three years in office.White House allies—including Obama’s most
staunch supporters—acknowledge the trouble plaguing the administration.“There's no way to fudge it, it's been a
pretty bleak year for the president,” said one former senior administration
official. “It hasn't been victory after victory. In fact, the bright spots have
been hard to discern.”mAs bad as things
have been, however, Obama has a handful of things to be thankful for, and hopeful
that he can still turn around his second term…..To Read More……

My Take –There are a ton
of comments about his article, and you may wish to review them, but if not, I
have listed a number of them here.To quote
one of the responders who refers to himself as “Mein Kampf”
- I thought this was a serious
article until I saw the economy was #1... funny!It would appear that almost all of the
readers of this article that appeared in The Hill had the same opinion and
created their own lists.

Someone
named “Sam’ said; “1) The Press 2) Uninformed Voters
3) Deceased Voters 4) Lap Dogs in Senate”.He was followed by sonnyboy1saying,
The only things obama is truly grateful for are; 1. The idiots who voted for
him. 2. The senate and congress who don't have the cajones to impeach him.Tony_Secosays,
‘Obama should be thankful for an electorate where over half willing believe his
lies’, but I think robertbubba2
really hit the nail on the head pointing out; “4 things he can always
count on NBC,CBS,ABC and MSNBC !!!!”

The lists were varied and not all had four items.This one from "eoddvpj"says he can be, “Thankful for:
1-He doesn't have to run again, 2-Golf, 3-He has Repubs to blame, 4-He has Bush
to blame.”Then we have ewm
who went historical on us with; 1. Saul Alinsky, 2. Jeremiah Wright,3. Anita Dunn and 4. Tony Rezko

Salva
veritate says; “The 4 things Obama is really grateful for: 1) That the records of his
past are locked up tighter than data at the NSA, 2) The press is full of
communist sympathizers, 3) No one has called his Unconstitutional executive
orders bluff & impeached him, 4) The federal government, under the Dept of
Education, has successfully dumbed down the population over the last couple of
generations to the point that an idiot like him could actually get elected.

Gunner was far more succinct.“Four things Obama is thankful for, Libtard
low effort thinking voter's, Libtard low effort thinking voter's, Libtard low
effort thinking voter's., Libtard low effort thinking voter's”, which kind of
goes along with comments made by, georgedixon1.He outlines his ‘five’ reasons Obama
can be grateful.1) Obama-IRS 2012 says
Obama loves His corrupt IRS...otherwise would not have been thought to have won
in 2012, 2) Democrat low information voters...to them Caring is only something
to vote for...not to actually do, 3) Welfare and other Federal subsidies for
his underclass, 4) Being a Liberal President is cushy job, lots of servants,
big cars, free air travel, 5) No one has done any investigative journalism
regarding him...

DonRS isn’t as succinct as
Gunner.He says; “Let's consider some
other things Obama should be thankful for: 1) An uninformed voting public. Too
many voters pay no attention to the coming devastation set up by Obama's
policies. 2) An inattentive voting public. Unless a problem SMACKS them in the
face, their view is "what problem". 3) Establishment Republicans and
RINOs. Elected officials that have long ago abandoned the notion of serving the
people, rather fully adopted the idea of serving themselves. How many elected
officials in Washington, DC, who, once they lose their office, return to
"fly over country"? Rather than returning home, they remain in
Washington, DC performing as lobbyists, consultants, or otherwise capitalizing
on their contacts. Thus, they certainly don't want to alienate the entrenched liberals/socialists/communists/progressives/Democrats.
Getting along by going along is their fundamental operating principle! 4) Lack
of term limits on elected officials. The transformation of idealists, concerned
about serving their constituents, good government, the Constitution, our laws,
become the new residents of Washington, DC, loyal only to an ever expanding
government, raking off lots of money for themselves, in the process! Most of
our elected officials could not pass an IQ test! 5) An over riding factor of a
thoroughly corrupt Federal Government - Legislative, Executive AND Judicial
branches, exaggerated by the firmly entrenched, self serving bureaucracy!

Jamie think he should be grateful
for 1. stupid democrats 2. dumb democrats 3.Ignorant democrats 4. obama
worshipers.He and Gunner have like
thinking minds, keeping it short and sweet!FThomasCain
says; 1. The stupidity of the electorate,m 2. All the government dependent
parasites Democrats have created over 50 years., 3. Democratic Party owned
mainstream media, 4. A GOP leadership with no testicles, vision or plan on
taxes, energy, welfare reform or trying to pass a balanced budget amendment -
that would force all of the above.

One thing is clear.No matter what the polls say, Obama is incapable of fooling far more
people than the media would have you believe, and in spite of how this is
presented in so many different ways, there are a few things that rise above the
rest.These people believe, in all or part, Obama is
in place because of the cowardly or corrupt media that is complicit in his
crimes and won’t find fault with him or investigate his background, minority
voters, dumbed down low information public, voter fraud, self promoters, large all too powerful corrupt
government (all branches) and their agencies, corrupt big business, a corrupt, weak and
cowardly opposition, corrupt elected Democrats, huge support from extreme
leftists, and he lies with more skill and sincerity than Bill Clinton.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Once in Hawaii, I was
taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple, a man said, "I am going to
tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said "To
every man is given the key to Heaven. The same key opens the gates of Hell."And so it is with science.--Richard
Feynman

Years earlier, in the wake of watching his powerful,
atom-splitting creations wreak unspeakable havoc and end thousands of lives in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the affable and cheery Feynman grew melancholic,
grappling with a painful nuclear reality -- one he was instrumental in
establishing -- as well as uncertainty over the shape of things to come."I didn't know what the future was going
to look like, and I certainly wasn't anywhere near sure that we would last
until now," he recalled in 1987. "Therefore one question was: is
there some evil involved in science?"Feynman was struggling with an existential crisis only a member of the
Manhattan Project could truly experience…..To Read More…..My Take –I know I’m treading on sacred ground when
it comes to Feynman, but I have to tell you I don’t have a lot of sympathy for
these Manhattan Project people who later lamented and vented their deepest
emotions to the world for the part they played in the production of the atom
bomb, later acting as if they felt this was just some exciting and grand
experiment with no practical application, and were shocked when all those
people were killed. What did they think they were going to do with it? Bombs
are meant to kill people and destroy a lot of real estate, and they do a cracker jack job of it.

Many years ago a friend of mine, Dr.
Bill Goffman, a
mathematician at Case Western Reserve University, said something about atomic
energy I never forgot. “Atomic energy was designed to kill people, and it does
a cracker jack job of it.” So when these guys start venting their alleged
regrets - I really don’t want to hear it - especially since those two bombs –
as horrible as they were – saved millions of civilian lives by ending the war.
I also find it interesting when atheists start spouting off about 'evil'.How can anything be evil if there is no ultimate
moral arbiter?If there is no ultimate
arbiter of good and evil, then nothing is good and nothing is evil except how
we view reality in our own eyes, making all values arbitrary, and potentially temporary!

Can it be that
these atheists are having conscience problems?Nah….that would imply values that would be natural to all humans….like
stealing, rape, murder, etcOoops….it
just dawned on me.Those are universal
moral values shared by every race and every society, advanced and primitive, in
the world all through human history.Can
it be – is it possible – dare I say it – is there really is an ultimate moral arbiter?Well,
Feynman’s third value is; ""The scientist has a lot of experience
with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great
importance, I think."So, we can
assume a real scientist bashing believers is doubtful about all these absolute
statements about atheism?Sure doesn’t
sound like it to me, but what do I know….since my personal motto is De Omnibus
Dubitandum – question everything!And I
must tell you I have questioned the character of professional scientists for
many years.

When Steve Cole was a postdoc, he had an
unusual hobby: matching art buyers with artists that they might like. The task
made looking at art, something he had always loved, even more enjoyable. “There
was an extra layer of purpose. I loved the ability to help artists I thought
were great to find an appreciative audience,” he says.

At the time, it was nothing more than a
quirky sideline. But his latest findings have caused Cole — now a professor at
the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at the University of California,
Los Angeles — to wonder whether the exhilaration and sense of purpose that he
felt during that period might have done more than help him to find homes for
unloved pieces of art. It might have benefited his immune system too.……..At the time, mainstream science
rejected the idea that any psychological state, positive or negative, could
affect physical well-being. But studies during the 1980s and early 1990s
revealed that the brain is directly wired to the immune system — portions of
the nervous system connect with immune-related organs such as the thymus and
bone marrow, and immune cells have receptors for neurotransmitters, suggesting
that there is crosstalk……“Mood matters. If we change the psychology,
physiological changes do parallel that.”…… The researchers are not the first
from the PNI community to face accusations of wishful thinking. Indeed, the
story of the field's founder — hailed in the press as proof of the power of
positive emotions — has been questioned…..To Read More…..

My Take –First off, I believe having good feelings helps
create good health, if for no other reason, negative feelings such as hate,
anger, envy generate destructive chemicals in the system. Positive emotions generate the opposite. Will positive thinking cure cancer?I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it
helps, in conjunction with medical treatments, but I have serious doubts
positive feelings will do it on its own.However, as I read this I couldn’t help but chuckle because there is one
component to this you won’t find in any – or almost any – scientific study; the
religious component.Proverbs 14:30 Amplified Bible (AMP) says; A calm and
undisturbed mind and heart are
the life and health of the
body, but envy, jealousy, and wrath are like rottenness of the
bones.

Well, how much
can you drink? (It better be a lot.)By Dan Nosowitz 11.27.2013

The health
benefits of resveratrol, a compound found in the skin of grapes (and thus in
red wine), have long been known. Studies have indicated that it serves as an antioxidant,
that it has anti-tumor
properties, that it can help you live longer, and that it
may be responsible for the "French paradox" (the French have a
high-fat diet and yet low instances of health disease). A new study examined
resveratrol's effects on melanoma, and found that it has anti-cancer properties.
Cool! But, well, ignore.

First question:
has resveratrol been proven to fight cancer? First answer, to that first
question: Resveratrol has been studied significantly, but never in a clinical
trial on humans. Yes, it's been tried on rats and mice, but only clinical
trials on humans can say for sure whether a compound has a proven effect….. To
get the amount of resveratrol from wine to equal the amount given to the
animals in these studies, you'd be dead from alcohol poisoning a few times over.Red wine has about 160 µg of resveratrol per
ounce. Assuming each glass of wine has about five ounces, that's 800 µg per
glass, or 0.0008 grams…..To read More…..http://www.popsci.com/article/science/can-red-wine-really-heal-cancer-and-prolong-your-life

Editor’s
Note– µgand mcg are both symbols
for 'micrograms'. The correct symbol for microgram is actually µg. However,
there is no way of typing that on a keyboard, so they came up with other
versions, two of which are µg and mcg.

After positively reviewing American Betrayal at Breitbart News at
the end of September, Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov found themselves
subject to a flurry of attacks. They have now responded, not in kind but rather
to explain why "a more intelligent debate" over the issues raised in American Betrayal is urgently needed despite what they call
"the vehement campaign against the book."

This list will
help non-scientists to interrogate advisers and to grasp the limitations of
evidence, say William J. Sutherland, David Spiegelhalter and Mark A. Burgman.

Calls for the
closer integration of science in political decision-making have been
commonplace for decades. However, there are serious problems in the application
of science to policy — from energy to health and environment to education…….Of
course, others will have slightly different lists. Our point is that a wider
understanding of these 20 concepts by society would be a marked step forward.

The Fed is
busy doing everything in its considerable power to get credit (that is, debt)
growing again so that we can get back to what it considers to be “normal.”But the problem is that the recent past was not
normal. You may have already seen this next chart. It shows total debt in the
U.S. as a percent of GDP: (Source).....

Somewhere
right around 1980, things really changed, and debt began climbing far faster
than GDP. And that, right there, is the long and the short of why any attempt
to continue the behavior that got us to this point is certain to fail. It is
simply not possible to grow your debts faster than your income forever.
However, that’s been the practice since 1980, and current politicians and
Federal Reserve officials developed their opinions about “how the world works”
during the 33-year period between 1980 and 2013.Put bluntly, they want to get us back on that same track, and as soon as possible. The reason? Because every major power center, be that in D.C. or on Wall Street, tuned their thinking, systems, and sense of entitlement, during that period. And, frankly, a huge number of financial firms and political careers will melt away if and when that credit expansion finally stops. And stop it will; that’s just a mathematical certainty.......To Read More.....

Worst
Two Words to a Liberal: “Christian Right”- November 27, 2013 by David L. GoetschTo a liberal, the worst two words in the
English language are “Christian Right.” For left-wing secular humanists, these
two words conjure up images of Old Testament Pharisees who want to establish a
theocracy on earth and stone to death all those who fall short of its tenets.
Some humanists even consider the Christian Right to be one giant hate group.
Apparently there are a lot of Americans who agree. In recent years there have
been numerous books published proclaiming the Christian Right to be a dangerous
group of theological fanatics determined to force all Americans to live by their values.
Several of these books became bestsellers. One that springs immediately to mind
is God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by the late
Christopher

That's the question Micah Zenko poses at Foreign Policy. It's partly a rhetorical question meant to
highlight a perceived double standard in how Israel's nuclear program is treated
differently from Iran's--a double standard that isn't really one at all, since
Israel is a democratic country and not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty
in any case. But it's also a practical question, because of the low probability
that normal air strikes would be enough to destroy Iran's dispersed, secretive,
and largely buried nuclear facilities.

There’s
a coincidental, but illuminating, confluence of “media mythology” stories at
the moment. The first concerns a series of claims by wait staff that hateful,
bigoted customers stiffed them for tips and wrote awful things on the receipt.
First there was a waitress at a Red Lobster in Tennessee who claimed her
customer wrote the N-word on a receipt, a story that gained national attention
and led to her collecting over $10,000 in donations from sympathetic and/or
outraged people across the country. Her story is almost certainly a hoax, based on handwriting analysis, the
testimony of the allegedly offensive customer, and other data…..To Read More…..

Responses of Marine Benthic Microalgae to Declining pH Values (26 Nov 2013) At a shallow-water cold-vent system
releasing CO2 directly into the ocean off the island of Vulcano, NE Sicily, the
stimulation of biomass in benthic assemblages was found to increase fivefold
along a natural gradient of CO2 ranging from 419 to 1611 ppm... Read More

Fine-Tuning the Spatial Distributions of
Species Thermal Habitats (26
Nov 2013) It makes a world of difference when assessing their ability to avoid
warming-induced extinction, as the authors of this study conclude that thermal variability within 1-km2 units
strongly increases local spatial buffering of future climate warming across
Northern Europe, even in the flattest terrains, providing yet another example that this
variability in temperature provides
buffering to mitigate climate-change impacts... Read More

Cloud Tuning in a Malleable Climate Model (26 Nov 2013) The results of this analysis indicate that the simulated temperature trend best
matches [the] observed trend when the model adopts the threshold [cloud
particle] radius that worst reproduces satellite-observed microphysical
statistics and vice versa, which
represents a stunning admission of an equally stunning model failure... Read More

The Amundsen-Bellingshausen Seas Low in CMIP5 Climate Models (26 Nov 2013) This atmospheric phenomenon strongly influences the climate of West Antarctica,
yet the results of this study show that the majority of CMIP5 models ... have a correspondingly poor representation
of West Antarctic climate due to difficulties in representing the
Amundsen-Bellingshausen Seas Low annual cycle, particularly its
longitudinal position... Read More

Elevated CO2 Reduces Ceratocystis Wilt in Two Eucalyptus Clones (27 Nov 2013) Results from this study show that an
increased CO2 concentration can reduce the severity of Ceratocystis wilt and
stimulate the growth of Eucalyptus clonal plantlets. And it does it all at one and the same
time... Read More

Modeling the West African Monsoon (27 Nov 2013) A study conducted in an effort to determine the degree to which several models
of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phase 5 (CMIP5) are able to
reconstruct the past behavior of the West African Monsoon the reveals
the CMIP5 models demand further work to
achieve a reasonable realism... Read More

The Impacts of Business-As-Usual Projected Altered Temperature,
Salinity and pCO2 on Filamentous Cyanobacteria of the Baltic Sea (27 Nov 2013) The pair of researchers who conducted this analysis conclude that he projected A1FI scenario [of future climate
change] might be beneficial for the two species dominating the extensive summer
blooms in the Baltic Proper... Read More

About Me

Green is a mixture of blue and yellow. That is the only factual definition of green that will stand the test of time. After that; any other definition is a corruption of a perfectly nice color. I have been an exterminator for 35 years. I have served as a trustee on industry association boards representing pesticide and fertilizer applicators actively for almost 25 years. I believe that what we do isn't just a job; it's a mission! We are that thin gray line that mans the wall telling the world; "no one will harm you on my watch". I also believe that to be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective. They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against. Our greatest worry is those within who support and facilitate their misanthropic goals.